Topic 87 What is an important discovery in the last 100 years?

There are many important discoveries in the last century. Some of them had fundamental influences on the development of my country - China. However, I believe that one of the most important discoveries is the Cross-feeding method of rice discovered by a pioneering crop scientist Mr. Weiming Yuan in the early 1980's.

China has a long history of agriculture. Chinese people have been relying (зависеть, полагаться) on agriculture for more than 2,000 years. Moreover, China is still basically an agricultural country now and will continue to be it in the next 20 to 30 years, even though its industry is undergoing revolutionary development (промышленность переживает революционное развитие). One of the most important agriculture products - rice, is essential to the people of China. Since Yuan's discovery has dramatically increased the production of rice in China, we can say that Yuan's discovery is beneficial for the people of China.

More importantly, rice is the major food of people in Southern China, where half of Chinese population lives there. People in the South eat rice everyday. So the consumption of rice is tremendous. As Yuan's cross-feeding rice seeds and raising methods provided 1.5 to 2 times more production of rice, people could effectively relieve (облегчить) the food supply crisis - a crisis that have caused millions of people to die in the 1960's.

When Chinese population exploded in the 1970's and 1980's, the effect of this discovery became much more significant. Yuan's discovery also corresponds (также соответствует) to China's current government policy that China takes agriculture as its first industry. This is because China has over 80% of farmers, and it's not realistic for it to become an industrialized country in a short period of time. Thus rice growing is still a crucial part of China's economic.

Overall, since most farmers in China are utilizing (используя) Yuan's discovery to increase rice production, and agriculture plays the most important role in China, I can firmly say that Yuan's discovery has been most beneficial to people in my country in the last 100 years.